Zingers Come Easily for Kathy Griffin, Even if Success Hasn’t

By

Eric Sasson

Nov 4, 2015 4:00 pm ET

Kathy Griffin and Margaret Cho are indisputably two of the most successful female comics of the last twenty years. Both will be performing at the New York Comedy Festival next week, with Cho performing atTown Hall on Nov. 11 and Griffin at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 12. For this two-part series for Ctrl-Alt this week, Speakeasy spoke with both comics about their careers, their longtime support for LGBT rights and the current slate of female comics, among other things. Monday’s article was on Margaret Cho. Today’s is on Kathy Griffin.

Kathy Griffin can’t turn off the funny. No matter how hard she tries—and why should she try?—her brain is always coming up with zinger after zinger. She’s been skewering celebrities and our culture’s obsession with fame for years, from “My Life on The D List” to her numerous comedy specials on Bravo to her recent gig at “Fashion Police.”

But to talk about Griffin as just a celebrity-targeting comedian would be reductive. She is a six-time Grammy nominee and one of only three women to win a Grammy for comedy album. Dig past all the celebrity gossip, and you see that Griffin’s humor is political and decidedly confrontational. She’s passionate about what she believes in and has no qualms fighting for it.

Which is maybe why she’s so beloved by gay men everywhere. Kathy Griffin is what many of us aspire to be: witty, sharp as a tack, indulging in our smack talk about celebrities while harboring a deep desire to walk amongst them. Gay men are not shy about loving their divas — ambitious,outspoken women who often wear their desire for attention nakedly. Perhaps because so many of us were closeted for so long, forced into silence or heteronormativity, we feel a particular affinity for Griffin’s acerbic tongue and her quest for “acceptance” amongst A-list celebrities.